Pucallpa Nov 09 Part 5

The final day was a very different day in format as we started the day by doing evangelism, after our team time and devotional. I encouraged the team, from my limited experience on how easy evangelism is when we let God lead us. People went out in a group of at least 2 and I hovered between groups trying to encourage them. I started off with Virna and Mechita. Mechita is a born evangelist and she started talking about Jesus to the first man we met. I then prayed for him for his knees and he was instantly healed. He then accepted Christ as his Saviour there and then, as did his wife.
I then went on and found Eduardo and Ceci, and Eduardo and I spoke to some mototaxi drivers, who were greatly encouraged. Following this I stopped to buy a drink, and asked the lady how she was. She then told me how bad her life was and I ended up praying for her son.
I then returned to find Holly, Ronald and Naomi who were talking to a man who had a hernia. We prayed for him and his hernia disappeared in front of our eyes. He said he had this hernia for 40 years and was thanking God, as this was the third miracle of healing that he received in his life.
It is interesting how God seems to heal more easily when the people do not have the money for health care. However why does this stop us believing that God heals today?
Nearly all the teams came back with great stories and also testimonies for healings and conversions. The most important thing was that our team was encouraged, and we know plan to start to do this in La Victoria around our church. Bring it on.

We went to the Laguna Yarinacocha in the afternoon, and had fun hanging out as a team.

Lagoon Yarinacocha and Daniel and Joel enjoying the lagoon and the water.

We returned to the church and ate a traditional dinner of fried fish and bananas. This was after our mototaxi driver got a flat tyre and caused two other drivers to crash and giving Chloe her first experience of using her first aid training on one of the drivers, who had potentially broken his foot, but was certainly was suffering from severe shock. Chloe did an amazing job and we packed him off to the hospital with a friend who he phoned.
This made me think. Do we stop for the one, when we have plans, and things we need to do. Did Jesus stop for the one. The answer is yes. Therefore what should our response be. Stop for the one and change our plan or keep to the plan because it is important because it will affect other people. I don't have an obvious answer, but I do think about the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I don't want to be the priest or the levi.

All the team except Daniel and Joel (who were sleeping)

After dinner we had a debrief and got the plane back without any problems, and with all our luggage. We arrived back in the house after 1 in the morning, very tired but very satisfied.
The week was very hard and very demanding for both Anna and I in different ways, but sacrifice for God always brings fruit, and we certainly saw a lot of fruit on the week, and I am not thinking of mangoes, bananas or even some of the more obscure jungle fruits!

Pucallpa Feb 09- Part 2- Arrival and Day 1

So the plan was set, Monday arrived and Julian and I left with good time to spare. We went to Eduardo and Cecilia’s house to pick them up, and only waited 25 minutes for them, not bad for them!
We arrived at the airport with no problems, as I had already checked us in online. Therefore we had time to have a coffee. No problem as we had plenty of time. This is of course before you send your coffee back because it is lukewarm and have to add so much sugar to make the coffee taste like honey. (Peruvians generally have coffee with their sugar, and not the other way round). Anyway we arrived back with the coffees after an age and then realised we need to board, but couldn’t with more than 100ml of liquid. Drinking piping hot coffee is no problem for Eduardo and Cecilia, and it went in 2 minutes. For me I had a choice leave it or burn my mouth, I went for the latter!
Anyway we landed in Pucallpa without any problems, and went out for dinner with the senior leaders of the main church.

Julian sharing a word, translated by Jen
Jen was our main guide and she took us to the Shipibo church the next morning, to start at 8am. We arrived only 40 minutes late and many people had not arrived at the church. It was a great to be a part of something so unique, for a long time the Shipibos have not wanted to associate with the Spanish speaking Christian church, so this was a great honour. So straight away our plans went up the wall when the pastor introduced us and then passed to his worship leader, and Eduardo had to follow on the keyboard, a lesser man would have really struggled. Eduardo accompaning the enthuastic Shipibo worship leader.

This was followed by one of 3 dances by the Shipibo teenage girls. These girls are amazing examples of Christians as they are persecuted for their faith, as their parents are not Christians and make it very difficult for these girls to follow their faith in Jesus. When we were returning to shower and have dinner before the evening session Jen told me that these girls would have been very happy with lunch, as may have not eaten for 2-3 days. Also I was told by Cecilia it would be great to do a medical campaign with these girls and others like them as they are very affected by parasites, and probably malnourished. How I count my blessings. The Shipibo girls dancing and singing for us
All the sessions went really well, although massively extended due to the pastor summing up each session in Shipibo for some time. Also endless songs and offerings in between each thing we did. The time with these people was a real inspiration, people with nothing, wanting to come and share the little we had to offer. It is amazing how God uses us.

Eduardo leading his worship workshopJulian leading his workshop
The evening session went well, although we arrived more than a hour late, as we stopped at the hospital to pray for someone, had a sleep to recover, and had a wonderful jungle dinner. The hope was that we would miss some of their special bits, and just preach and minister. God has a sense of humour. We still had all of the ‘special bits’ and finished at 10.30 ready for our pick up at 6.45 the next morning. The plan was to continue till midnight, but Jen had a word!
Great start to our 3 days.

Conferencia Corazon

Last week I had the privilege to go, as well as serve at the conference ‘Corazon atrevido, atreverte para servir’ or a heart that dares to serve. I am generally not a fan of conferences where I am just there to listen to teaching, but as normally happens God really blessed me, and I feel I have much to put into action from this conference.
I had the privilege to be looking after the pastors that came in from around Peru as well as abroad. I know have been invited to Cusco, Arequipa, Urubamba, and a place I’d never heard of in Ecuador. Watch this space. The most exciting is Urubamba as they have a conference every year, with many overseas speakers, and the pastors have a similar spirit to ourselves, and are friends with our senior pastors, Eduardo y Cecilia.

The conference was in the National Stadium
All the main sessions really blessed me and I know need to put these things into practice. I was also really touched by the extra visitors that were invited. The mayor of Lima thanked the church hosting the event ‘Camino de Vida’ or ‘Way of Life’. Also the Chancellor of the Exchequer was invited and thanked the church for the way they were involved in the earthquake of 2007, and how the work of helping continues.

Robert Barringer and The Peruvian Chancellor.
John Verrecken an American missionary in Mexico was one of the main speakers and translators and was an inspiration as he is man who preaches honestly and in a straight forward way, but only things that he has lived or is living. This is a way I try to live, and serve, and it is always an inspiration to hear someone who is ahead of me in their work, and show me how to advance.
Maria Durso from New York spoke on the fire of the Holy Spirit and how we are refined, and have power. This as something I needed to be reminded of as well. I will be listening to this again on CD.

Maria Durso translated by John Vereckken.
The speaker who most impacted me however was Dino Rizzo, a leader of a big church in the USA called ‘The Healing Place’. The reason I was impacted because he has a very similar heart to me, but again he is ahead of me in his journey and especially in his ministry.

Dino Rizzo speaking about 'Servolution' translated by Robert Barringer, the leader of Camino de Vida.

He really understands the heart of God, the heart to serve the one, in love. His church is one of serving, which then opens the doors to the church.
One of their ventures is called ‘Servolution’ which is open to any church in the world and includes serving the people of your area, wherever this may be. I plan to do this event in our church to help aid the mission focus of the church. I plan to lead the church in 2 events and am asking every cell leader to do 1 event in this week. This means as a church we are serving in over 20 events.

Sami and Mayra two of the members of Vision Vida
The very exciting thing is that the teenagers have taken this servant attitude on, and are now starting to do events every Saturday, starting by giving out water to those in their cars, and one of the cell groups that I spoke to on Friday are doing an event this week. They either misunderstood me because of my Spanish or because they didn’t understand me. Anyway they are going to a very poor area of Lima to fix the house of a single mum, who has many problems and is the neighbour of one of the members of the cell group.
I’m so encouraged. Our church is starting to become focused outside its 4 walls.